


Death Suits You, Dear Sir

by Validity_For_Dissonance



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Angst, Dark Continent Arc, Enemies to Lovers, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Internal Conflict, M/M, Mafia Boss Kurapika, Pre-Dark Continent Arc, Sexual Tension, Succession Contest Arc (Hunter X Hunter)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:40:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24944002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Validity_For_Dissonance/pseuds/Validity_For_Dissonance
Summary: A blond eyebrow arches, ill-humored. “You really think that what you and I do can ever be perceived on equal grounds?”“Perhaps not yet,” Chrollo concedes. “But one year ago, did you imagine yourself leading a group in a criminal organization and wearing another’s blood like a second skin?”
Relationships: Kuroro Lucifer | Chrollo Lucifer/Kurapika
Comments: 65
Kudos: 225





	1. You look at me now, with those hollow eyed-sockets and smile

They say the underground bunkers that have been constructed as an elaborate maze beneath the streets of Swardani City are beyond the knowledge of anyone who is not part of the Mafia. Its padded walls trap whispered schemes and pained yowls within enclosed spaces, and complicit eyes are faithfully blind to the sins of fellow mobsters. Should a word spill about the ongoings in these bunkers to the outside world, the mouth that spoke them is inevitably found and its tongue is cut lest it disclose secrets again.

The Hunter Association is very much aware of the existence of this lawless pseudo-sanctuary, yet not a single attempt has been made in effort to exterminate the rats that populate it.

Kurapika stopped wondering about the morality of this decision about a year ago—approximately the same time he ascended the ladder of the criminal elite and secured himself a seat as a Mafia boss.

The weight of his retired conscience sits atop his shoulders, and his team’s expectant eyes that await his guidance burn at the back of his scalp.

And quite frankly, he doesn’t remember the last time he had a modicum of unperturbed rest that lasted more than one hour, at most.

He sighs, raising sleepless eyes to look at the hostage in front of him who is stiffly seated on a metal chair and bound in chains. Bulging eyeballs and trickling sweat are telltale signs of the sheer horror the man is feeling, but this hardly ignites a speck of sympathy in Kurapika.

Anyone who trades in human organs is scum.

“One more time,” intones Kurapika evenly. His voice is void of emotion. One might mistake this as a token of boredom. Likely, his team behind him does just that. That’s alright; he would prefer to give such an impression anyway. “The scarlet eyes you obtained from the black market in Zaban. Where are they now?”

When the man gulps, the strangled noise sounds throughout the dark, empty room. “I told you…” His voice quivers, yet he does not stutter. His unblinking gaze makes Kurapika tighten his lips in clinched distrust. “I sold them to a man who offered a million Jennies in return—but I never learned his name! He… He looked like a tourist! A very rich tourist—but nothing truly remarkable, not to me! I don’t remember!”

From Kurapika’s extended hand, the dowsing chain flicks forward once and then swings slowly to either side. Left, then right, left, then right.

The hostage times the swings to the pounding of his heart.

“You’re not necessarily lying,” Kurapika muses, head tilted to the side, gaze hard and unamused. “But you’re certainly not telling the whole truth. I think you can tell me more about this man.”

“No… I swear it, I can’t—!” A shocked gasp escapes him when a chain slithers around his neck, its dagger-like end cutting his cheek in warning.

“Can’t, or won’t?

“C-can’t!” he chokes at the tightening clasp of the chain and attempts to swallow, only for a lump to form at the top of his throat. His eyes start to collect tears.

“You’re starting to bore me,” Kurapika says airily, though annoyance clearly licks at his tone. “What was he wearing?”

When the chains loosen, the man inhales greedily, and his voice is scratchy and rough when he speaks. “A robe…” He winces and closes his eyes.

_He’s scared. But not of me._

“You said he was rich. Was the robe adorned by any insignia related to a corporation? A family crest? Anything to signify his affiliations?”

For a while, the man does nothing but shiver in foreboding. The dowsing chain stutters lightly, as though to warn its owner of impending dishonesty.

Kurapika narrows his eyes. “I advise you to answer wisely.”

“I… can’t remember…”

The chain swings violently.

And so does Kurapika’s fist.

Behind him, Melody grimaces at the wet, cracking sound of broken bones and splashing blood.

He lowers his hand, steel dyed in crimson and dripping onto a dirty floor.

A pathetic wail escapes the man’s lips and he spits lest he choke on his own blood. He whimpers at the sight of a fallen tooth, but Kurapika’s grip on the hair at the nape of his neck forces him to look into livid scarlet eyes.

“That was one tooth. You have thirty one more, and I have all the patience to spare. If you run out of teeth and I still haven't obtained the information I require, I will kill you. Is that very clear?”

“Please, please—!”

“Beg me one more time and you lose a tooth.”

“He—he will kill me!”

Blond eyebrows furrow. “And does it seem like I’m taking you to a walk in the park?”

“Oh, but he will be crueler!” He sounds near delirious, now; seeing images in his mind’s eye that are painted by a morbid imagination and an undoubtedly forceful reputation whose echoes trace back to whoever bought the scarlet eyes. “You can’t begin to imagine what he would do to me, and—and to my family! He is a wicked man with sordid, sadistic tastes, he—”

“Then let’s strike a deal,” interrupts Kurapika. “If you don’t tell me, I will kill you and your family. If you tell me, I will spare you and place your family under the protection of the Mafia. How does that sound?”

This seems to measurably calm the man. His breathing is less harsh and erratic, but the dazed fear has yet to leave his eyes. “You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into… He… is royalty…”

Surprise parades itself on Kurapika’s visage. “Royalty?”

“A prince… of some place in… the Azian continent… But that is all I can tell you. Please, spare me…!”

The chains around his bruised body quiver and fall, and so does he. Drunk on relief and gratitude, he chants a series of thanks to an apathetic Kurapika, whose eyes are once again gray-brown and tired.

“Blindfold him and get him out of here,” he commands disinterestedly, and Basho complies without a word, though he chances a worried look at his boss.

As Kurapika makes to exit the interrogation room, Linssen hands him a handkerchief and says, “A bit premature, wouldn’t you say? He hasn’t even given you a name.”

“The Azian continent has one royal family, and they rule over the Kakin Empire. There can’t be too many Kakin princes who collect organs. I can figure it out by myself. Besides,” Kurapika wipes at the blood that taints his cheek, but only manages to smear it. “I believe he was trying to avoid saying certain keywords that would alert any of the mob against him. Kakin has agents within the Mafia, after all.”

The chuckle that leaves Linssen’s lips is too relieved; too pleased. “You were looking out for him, weren’t you? Typical Kurapika. I bet your threats were just meant to scare him into speaking, is that right?”

The question seems rhetorical, so Kurapika says nothing. He turns his head away and his frown deepens.

_Wrong._

Being forced into blinding light when he would prefer to obscure himself in the anonymity of darkness… is exhausting.

His team, his… _friends_ … They all expect too much of him. The light they shine upon him reflects a distorted image that is broken beyond repair, and they choose to assemble the pieces into a form that does not come close to who he actually is.

Kurapika juxtaposes how they perceive him and how he perceives himself, and his mind falls at dissonance.

And though he suffers at his own hand and freezes at the ice of a numbed soul, he would rather remain this way than become someone he is not. 

But the implication of these thoughts makes him feel ashamed and tainted. Foul. So he voices none of them, and feels unspeakably lonely.

He is only given a moment to dwell on that feeling.

There is no proper way to describe the subtle change in the atmosphere, but Kurapika senses it instantly. It is an abrupt heaviness; a sense of being watched. He stiffens for a moment and lifts his gaze, feeling his breath come to a halt when he locks eyes with Chrollo Lucilfer. Everything around him becomes blurred, and no sound reaches his ears. For a while—it seems long but it must have been mere few seconds—there is only shock mingled with incredulous disdain.

The man in question seems to hold no similar sentiments. He has the audacity to smile at Kurapika, only slightly and more by his eyes than his lips, and his posture remains self-assured and at ease, with his hands stuffed in the pockets of his pants. He wears his hair down but does not bother to conceal his tattoo; the suit paired with a dark dress shirt and a continental necktie that is accentuated by a crystal cross in the middle suggest that he is here for business, all the while reminding the mafiosi of who he is and what he is capable of.

 _What is_ he _doing here?_

_Since when does he deal with the Mafia?_

Alert confusion is quickly replaced by alarm. Kurapika invokes his nen and tests its reach and permeation. He senses it in every every person that has been restrained by its conditions, but—his stomach drops to his feet—it is nowhere to be found around Chrollo’s heart.

The chain has been snapped and broken.

Chrollo has his nen again.

Kurapika knows that the horror on his face gives away this realization by the smirk that manifests on Chrollo’s face, replacing the mocking smile from moments before.

The pallor of his complexion is picked up by Linssen, who looks at him with concern. “Boss? Everything alright?”

He receives no response.

Chrollo, who is in a discussion with two mafiosi who seem to be leading him towards the central meeting room, slows down his pace when he approaches Kurapika until they stand side by side.

His voice is honeyed and lilting when he speaks. “Lovely seeing you again,” he pauses, as though to delight in the syllables that are next formed by his lips, “Kurapika.”

Kurapika’s chained hand curls into a fist, but he does not respond nor look at his nemesis, and all too soon, Chrollo has resumed his pace and is now walking past Kurapika.

He hates the sound of his name from the Spider Head’s lips; hates how exposed and at a disadvantage it makes him feel. It only goes to suggest that Chrollo has gathered more information about him, placing him and his team at a greater risk. Letting the Phantom Troupe act whenever they deem it suitable is too hazardous for Kurapika’s liking, and he would be damned if he willingly gave them the upper hand by being too slow to react.

With clenched teeth, Kurapika says, “Wait for me in the car, Linssen,” and turns to stride after the disappearing forms of three black suits.

Linssen’s exasperated attempt to stop him hardly registers in his mind. He zeroes in on his target, quickens his gait, and enters the meeting room with graceful stealth before its doors have the chance to close. Seven pairs of eyes turn to look at him with varying degrees of displeasure and surprise. The eighth pair is much too amused.

“If you all don’t mind,” Kurapika says evenly, betraying nothing of his inner turmoil, “I need to have a word with your guest.”

One of the mafiosi, a bulky man with a short temper and a not-unfounded dislike towards Kurapika, slams his hand against the table and exclaims, “Like hell you will! You have a lot of nerve, boy, waltzing in and out as you please! No one has crowned you prince other than your measly subordinates who shamelessly lick your shoes, so don’t expect any of us to cater to your stupid demands!”

Kurapika turns to look at him with measured calmness and hardened eyes, but before he has the chance to speak, his rescue comes in an unlikely form.

“Please excuse him, Mr. Sashimoto,” Chrollo says calmly, raising a pacifying hand. “Kurapika’s business must be urgent if he deemed it necessary to intervene upon our meeting like this. Though I trust it won’t take too long?” He turns to Kurapika in a silent askance for him to confirm, but the blond only narrows his eyes and says nothing. But a master at manipulation that he is, Chrollo twists his lack of response by a genial smile directed at the other men, as though to suggest that Kurapika has indeed conceded.

“There you have it, gentlemen,” Chrollo says, standing up from his seat. “I’ll be back shortly.”

Without waiting for Chrollo, Kurapika exits the room and stands by the door, so that the moment it opens again, he grabs the other man by the lapel of his suit jacket and slams him against the wall, holding him still by an elbow against the throat.

But much like a parody of two years ago, Chrollo doesn’t find it in him to lose his cool. He allows the assault and his heartbeat doesn’t quicken, gray eyes unexpressive as he looks down at Kurapika.

“Never a peaceful encounter with you, is there?” he says.

Kurapika sneers and presses his arm closer to his throat. “I’d keep that sarcasm to myself, if I were you. What are you doing here?”

Chrollo’s brow furrows momentarily as his lips paint a smile. “Remind me how this concerns you again?”

“Don’t play coy, Lucilfer.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” He straightens his stance and removes Kurapika’s arm, but does nothing to increase the distance between them. “I’m not here for you, if that’s what you mean. And I’m afraid you’re not entitled to any further explanation. Is there anything else I could help you with?”

Kurapika clicks his tongue in irritation, entirely distrustful of any word that leaves his mouth. “And it’s a coincidence that you show up at my place of work after getting your nen back? How naive do you think I am? I know you want retribution for what I did to you. You’re probably bitter about your lost Spiders, too.”

At that, Chrollo’s visage darkens and he tenses slightly, but it is still not the reaction that Kurapika is aiming for.

“I will never forgive you for the death of Uvogin and Pakunoda; make no mistake about that. But…” he pauses for a moment; contemplates his answer before giving it, “I believe in universal justice. _Fructus naturales_. I suppose I blame myself for their death as much as I blame you.”

Now he has begun to speak cryptically, and the target of his words appears to be himself rather than Kurapika. But his introspection ends quickly enough, and he levels Kurapika with his fathomless gaze again, head tilted slightly to the side.

“What was it that Sashimoto called you? A self-crowned prince? It does suit you. You seem to think that everything revolves around you, when in fact you’re as important and unimportant as everyone else on this planet.”

An insult handed by an enemy rarely carries the ability to injure, and so Kurapika doesn’t dwell on a single word that’s been uttered, choosing instead to deflect the subject back to what truly matters: finding out the Phantom Troupe’s agenda.

But before he gets the chance to reply, Chrollo speaks again. He hums quietly, taking in Kurapika’s visage. “Or perhaps… it’s not out of self-importance. It’s paranoia.” He rests a leather-gloved thumb underneath Kurapika’s swollen eye, which widens instantly in alarm. “You don’t get much sleep, do you?”

Kurapika is quick to react, slapping away the offending touch and raising a nen-charged chain in warning. “Try this again, Lucilfer, and I won’t be as merciful as before.”

Chrollo has the gall to chuckle. “Fool me once, Kurapika,” and the continuation isn’t necessary. The same trick won’t work on him twice.

“You don’t have permission to use my name.”

“Do you prefer ‘chain bastard’?”

“I prefer that you don’t address me at all.”

“Says the very person who insists on prolonging this exchange after he himself had started it.”

Chrollo’s tone is free of annoyance or vexation, though his words might suggest such sentiments. Kurapika is appalled when he realizes that his enemy is _enjoying_ himself. That Kurapika is _amusing_ him.

At length, Chrollo releases a sigh and reaches into his pocket. Kurapika tenses immediately and hisses a, “Don’t,” at which the older man raises an eyebrow as he produces a handkerchief before offering it to him.

He gestures to his cheek—to the long forgotten blood smear—and Kurapika touches it self-consciously. It is now dry and flaky, but the trail is long and conspicuous. He refuses to take the handkerchief.

Chrollo hums wryly, thumbing the satiny fabric, and says, “You wear sanctimony and bloodshed so well together, one would forget that they are oxymorons.”

Kurapika crosses his arms over his chest and tilts his head upwards to look into his eyes. “If everyone’s too holy to take out the criminals, there will be no sanctimony to speak of.”

“Playing God now, are we?”

“Does that offend you? I know it’s your favorite role to play.”

Laughing lowly, Chrollo says, “Not at all, I just don’t see how this gives you the right to judge me.”

A blond eyebrow arches, ill-humored. “You really think that what you and I do can ever be perceived on equal grounds?”

“Perhaps not yet,” Chrollo concedes. “But one year ago, did you imagine yourself leading a group in a criminal organization and wearing another’s blood like a second skin?”

Kurapika’s lips draw in a thin line.

Chrollo smiles. “Who is to say what you will be doing a year from now? Two years? When you’re my age and older?”

“Your words are presumptuous at best. You don’t know anything about me or my motives. You can’t divorce action from intention.”

“Yet divorcing action from consequence is permissible?”

“I weigh every possible consequence before I act.”

“In a way that works in your favor, I’m sure. Have you ever stopped to think about the perspectives of your victims? Or do you think them unworthy of such a privilege because they fall below your standards of what it is to be an acceptable human being?”

For once in his life, Kurapika is robbed of words. He sucks in an inconspicuous breath, gaze narrowed yet unyielding.

On his part, Chrollo softens his gaze. “But then again, I don’t know you.” Are his words supposed to sound so taunting? “If I did, then I would be inclined to say that we’re not very different at all.”

And he side steps him and begins to walk away.

“This was a lovely conversation, Kurapika. I hope we can repeat it again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back to writing Kurokura because those two are so addictive.  
> It's been a while since I've written anything at all, so I hope I'm not too rusty...  
> This one draws from Tamino's song "Cigar"--you're encouraged to listen to it; it serves as a nice summary for the story.
> 
> Feedback keeps me going. ♡


	2. It's the perfect time for a bottle of wine

When he manages an exhale, his lungs feel as though they are on fire. Kurapika’s chest flutters, increasing the burden of broken ribs on internal organs. The pain is searing, blinding, still too sharp for him to surrender to the sweet oblivion of a fainting spell, and his head swims in a puddle of blood. His blood. It leaves his ears ringing and endows the pain with a surreal haze. Too awake, too dazed.

This… wasn’t supposed to happen.

He tries to lift his right leg, manages to fold it at the knee, only for it to sag again against the other leg.

He planned for this too thoroughly for things to end in such a travesty; the details were all accounted for, studied to the last letter and committed to memory. Why then…?

His heart sinks to his stomach and he grits his teeth at a pain bestowed not by splintered bones or blackened skin, but by a foul conspiracy between his mind and heart.

Trust is a treacherous gift to bestow upon anyone.

He should have known better.

He should have…

The sun bleeds red as it sets down the horizon. Soon, the stars will burn the sky, but now the sky is draining away the last remnants of bruised purples and yellows.

Indigo blue.

Kurapika focuses on the indigo blue. But his eyes must have misted at a certain point, for when they regain focus, the blue is a shade darker, and its glint cannot be the token of any star.

_An earring…?_

His eyes move slowly past it and across the face that is staring at him in blank interest. The dark grey eyes are too unexpressive, and the downturn of the mouth can be linked to any of too many different thoughts. _Which one is true, then?_

But quickly enough, Kurapika links the face to a name; to a memory; to an anguish too great to remember at a time like this, and decides that Chrollo has come to gloat. Witness the death of the very last Kurta, if not cause it himself, should Kurapika not die from sheer blood loss first.

Now he hates himself even more for losing. And against some goons from the Mafia no less. One of whom he thought was on his side…

A gloved hand reaches out to him, and Kurapika summons whatever strength he has to jerk his head to the side and bare his teeth to bite—if these are his last moments, then he will not be said to have surrendered willingly to the cold clutch of death in its most fitting of physical manifestations.

But the hand bears no promise of demise, and it is not cold at all. The leather is warm against his chilled temples, and the fingers are gentle as they brush aside blond tendrils that have become matted and stiff. The sudden surge of warmth brings to attention how cool the concrete below him is.

His eyes are wide open in shock.

A breeze brushes past them to rustle their hair and clothing, the Spider Head seated silently on the ground and leaning on one hand to gaze at the Mafia boss sprawled helplessly by his side.

“You could have died,” Chrollo speaks at last, his voice flat and smooth.

Kurapika opens his mouth, chokes on blood, and forces out an answer. “Did you…” he swallows at the effort it takes to speak, “… come to make true of it?”

The passionless lips rise in a smile, amused at his line of thought. “On the contrary. Quite so, in fact.”

But he doesn’t elaborate any further. Before Kurapika can shun him away with biting words and sardonic observations, Chrollo rises to his knees and snakes two hands beneath Kurapika’s body; one under his thighs, and the other around his shoulders. He stands on steady feet and adjusts the thin frame in his grasp—carefully, lest he cause unintended pains.

His effort is thrown to the wind, however. With all his might, feeble though it may be, Kurapika wrestles against him; thrashes to and fro; prefers the embrace of jagged concrete to backhanded mercy.

“Hold still,” says Chrollo, maintaining a firm clasp around him. “You don’t have much energy to spare.”

“Let— _go_ of me, you bastard!”

With the last ounce of adrenalin-fueled strength, Kurapika pushes against Chrollo’s chest fruitlessly. And then, like a flame that has expended all the wax of a candle, he is snuffed.

Panting and sagging in Chrollo’s arms, Kurapika notices the body of the man who betrayed him through a half-lidded gaze. A pen is sticking out of his head.

He did wonder where he had disappeared.

The next few hours are drowned in darkness.

When he regains consciousness, the first thing he registers is the pain coursing through his body and plaguing his head in particular. The second thing is the softness of the sheets around him.

Taupe eyes snap open. Kurapika sits up at once, not a single vestige of sleep to addle his faculties, and he scans the foreign room that houses him. Neutral walls, impersonal photographs framed near an expansive window, and fluttering curtains.

And a man seated on a windowsill, looking out at the faraway city lights.

“I was wondering when you would wake up,” comments Chrollo with his calm monotone, still facing away from Kurapika. “A maid should be here at the crack of dawn to clean this room. I wondered if I’d have to kill her.”

This comment sensitizes Kurapika again to who he is and whom he’s with. A shadow falls across his face, his scowl evident in moonlight.

It is then that Chrollo turns his head to look at him, neck craned at an angle and lips rising in a familiar smirk, before facing him directly. “That is what you’d have me say, isn’t it? I don’t want to cause you too much cognitive dissonance by not living up to your expectations of me. Your head hurts enough as it is, I imagine.”

Kurapika sits up more stiffly against the headboard. With Chrollo facing away from the sole source of light, his entire visage is obscured, and Kurapika hates every expression he fails to see.

“You assumed I’d be confused at the _kindness_ you afforded me?” says Kurapika wryly. “Let me put your mind at ease. I don’t trust a single thing you do, and take nothing for granted.”

Chrollo lets out a hum and brings the rim of a wineglass to his lips to sip softly. “That’s not completely true. You wouldn’t have ended up in this situation had you truly taken nothing for granted.”

This reminder of a cheaply sold loyalty, of treasonous eyes slanting in guilt one last time before growing cold, puts a leaden weight in Kurapika’s heart.

“I miscalculated…” he mutters coldly.

“And it was a nigh-lethal miscalculation.” Chrollo pushes against the edge of the sill and moves to sit on a finely crafted, white-wooded chair by a mahogany coffee table. Kurapika follows his every move from under an overly grown fringe. His hair has been chaotic for a while, now.

“Are you holding me accountable for my own life?”

The pure sardonicism of Kurapika’s tone entices a laugh from Chrollo. “Not quite.” He pauses, leveling the blonde with an odd smile, and eventually says, “I would have offered you a drink, but you would probably think it poisoned.”

“Can’t afford another miscalculation…”

The weight of his head is too heavy. _A concussion_ …? He rests it against the palm of his hand and freezes. There is a cloth wrapped around his forehead, and it feels very much like medicinal gauze. Kurapika rips the blanket off of his body and sees that a good part of the rest of his body has been subjected to the same treatment. And the clothes… an oversized white button-up and dress pants that are too loose and too long… are definitely not his.

“You _undressed_ me?” he questions with a bite to his voice. To think that he lay so vulnerably under the hands of Chrollo Lucilfer…

“Better than let your wounds fester, no?”

Kurapika raises his head to glare at him.

Chrollo raises his glass in a mock toast. “I will take your silence as a sign of gratitude.”

Without thinking, Kurapika gets out of bed and strides towards the smirking menace with an admitted limp to his gait. He yanks that glass out of his hand and downs the wine in two large gulps. The surprised look on Chrollo’s face is definitely worth it.

Slamming the glass on the table, Kurapika attempts to hide the tremor in his fingers by gripping its stem too tightly, his vision swimming as he glowers at the general direction where Chrollo should be.

Chrollo sighs. He stands and reaches out to him. “Kurapika—”

But Kurapika is quick to slap the hand away. “Don’t _touch_ me.” He steps back and falters, nearly falling on his backside if it weren’t if Chrollo’s quick reflexes. The other man steadies him at once and seats him on the chair that is opposite of his own, and the faint concern on his face agitates Kurapika more than he cares to admit. 

They allow silence for a minute or two, and Kurapika is the one to break it.

“Why?” he voices quietly.

“Hm?”

“Why did you save me? Did you want me to die at your hands instead?”

His voice is too quiet. So quiet, he fears that Chrollo didn’t hear him. He spies movement from the periphery of his vision, and hears a bottle being uncorked and the telltale slosh of wine being poured into a glass. Looking up slightly, he sees that an empty glass has been placed for him as well, and the bottle is only an arm’s reach away.

“If you want me to answer your questions, you must refrain from providing your own answers,” says Chrollo.

Kurapika closes his mouth, fingers twisting the hem of the oversized shirt. He sighs, sits back, and crosses his legs at the knees in an attempt to regain his air of control. But the ashen complexion, the caved shoulders, and the sunken eyes that speak of years’ worth of grief and sorrow all work against his favor.

“Very well, I won’t,” he says stiffly. “Why then?”

Twirling the red liquid in its glass, Chrollo thinks. “I don’t know if I have an easy answer for you. I simply didn’t want you to die.”

This raises more questions than the answer is worth. Kurapika dislikes loose ends—he must tie them lest he find another issue to dwell on and waste away night’s hours.

“Playing God, then,” he provides.

Chrollo’s chuckle is enigmatic at best. He leans his chin on his fist and muses, “The role is not so fulfilling if you only choose whom to kill and not whom to spare.”

But those words sound like an extension of Kurapika’s comment, and not his own motivator nor belief.

He should have known that even a civil conversation with the Spider Head would be frustrating beyond belief.

Kurapika hates that his sole match in intellectuality and evasion is his worst enemy.

_Just who are you?_

“Was he a friend?”

Kurapika snaps his head up, brow raised. “What?”

“The man who almost killed you,” Chrollo supplies. His eyes are intense and scrutinizing, giving the impression that while Kurapika is struggling to read him, he can read Kurapika without much difficulty. But… it must be said that behind the scrutiny, his mien is not harsh at all. There is almost an understanding, sympathetic air to him, and nothing can be more unbefitting of the face that plagues his nightmares.

Kurapika fidgets and hesitates. Why should he disclose any detail to Chrollo? But in the same vein, why shouldn’t he? He knows that he would never speak a word of this to Melody or Linssen for fear of burdening them. What does it matter if he dumped his darkness on someone who deserves the heaviest of burdens?

Eventually, he reaches forward and pours himself a glass of wine, taking a gulp instead of a sip. It tastes bitter and feels like stones scraping down his throat.

“He was a colleague. We were friendly. Yes, I suppose we were friends of some sort.” He gulps down the remainder of the drink. “The pay of bringing my dead body to Sashimoto was better than serving under me, though. Between money and a supposed friend, the friend always weighs less.” He pauses. “Or so it seems.” He brings the glass to his lips again and is disappointed when nothing comes down his mouth.

Chrollo holds out the bottle for him and pours down another glassful when Kurapika extends his glass. “Do you always do that?”

“Do what?”

“Hide behind sarcasm to make little of your pain?”

Too dazed and too spent, Kurapika doesn’t manage a reaction. With his head resting on the back of the chair, he looks at Chrollo numbly. “Do you always do that? … Destroy people’s lives then proceed to show them sympathy?”

Chrollo looks back at him, unblinking yet lost and distant in the eyes. “No.”

Kurapika closes his eyes, too tired to keep them open. The glass begins to slip from his hand. “I don’t understand you,” he whispers. “And I don’t _want_ to understand you.”

“Why is that?” Chrollo lowers his voice to a hushed timbre so as not to disturb whatever ambience they have unintentionally built.

“It makes me scared,” he admits, nuzzling rough wood which indents the alabaster of his cheekbone. “If I give the shadow beneath my bed an essence, who knows what monster will manifest.”

“You don’t fear a monster, Kurapika,” says Chrollo. “You expect it. You fear the shadow might turn out to be a human.”

Opening his eyes slowly, Kurapika fixes Chrollo with a lucid, heavy stare.

“Are you?”

Chrollo stares back, but fails to answer.

Kurapika wets his lips with the wine and sets the glass on the table. “Thought so,” he mutters.

“I don’t think I’m a monster,” says Chrollo quietly, “but I don’t have a grasp on what makes a human, either.” Sparing a moment to think, he eventually says, “I just know that I exist. As what and for what, I don’t know.”

For a person who doesn’t want to understand, Kurapika concentrates too hard on his words and finds rationality and reason clashing with circumstance and human nature. He is not currently of the mind for such a philosophical examination.

“I do know that I see a part of myself in you.”

Those words, spoken so simply, shock Kurapika into frigid animosity. “Take that back.” His voice is quiet, but leaden.

And Chrollo continues. “Claiming a purpose that makes you feel more and more lost as you come closer to achieving it. Carrying the burden of the lives of whom you care about, but not your own. Feeling so lonely—”

“ _Stop,_ ” Kurapika snaps, bringing the monologue to a premature end. The headache is returning in earnest, and he downs the forsaken glass, before digging a palm into his eye. “Don’t say another word…”

“… Am I wrong?”

There is a challenge in his tone, as there is an earnest desire to share a hitherto unspoken secret. It makes Chrollo’s granite eyes burn with a flickering flame; the only animation in a stoic face.

Kurapika returns the gaze, his eyes in turn clouded by a tipsy mist that reminds him of just how disoriented he feels. He breathes out, braces himself on the arms of the chair, and stands on unsteady feet.

“I’ve had enough…”

“Where are you going?”

Waving a dismissive hand and feeling a wave of nausea overtake him, he mumbles, “Any place that’s not here.”

Chrollo’s sigh comes from behind him. “You’re not thinking straight, Kurapika.”

“Rich of you to say—”

At that moment, bile rises to his throat and he can barely keep it in his mouth. He clasps a hand tightly against his lips and does not resist the arm that guides him to the bathroom.

Kurapika falls to his knees by the toilet and disgorges whatever was present in his stomach, feeling the acidity of the wine scorch his throat. A hand, bare this time, keeps his hair out of his face as he dry-heaves, and all too soon, he is throwing up again.

The forcefulness of such an attack on his already too broken body bursts the dam that was sealed for too-long years. A sob escapes him with the last heave, and soon enough, tears are running down his face and his frame is shaking with the effort to quiet down the sobs. The hand holding his hair has disappeared, and he hates himself for missing it. His entire body is wracked by chilled tremors, and he doesn’t know if he is freezing or burning.

The bathroom is empty for one too many seconds. He curls in on himself, resting his aching head against the toilette rim.

Something cool touches his cheek and he startles. Kurapika moves his head to look at it.

“Water,” says Chrollo quietly.

Kurapika reaches a trembling hand and drinks some of it before giving it back. Stripped of composure and dignity, he refuses to look at him.

Chrollo puts the glass on the floor before sitting down himself, heedless of soiling his ridiculously expensive suit. His hand hovers by hopelessly disheveled blond hair, hesitant. Kurapika flinches before he even has the chance to touch him, but does not edge away. Though his bloodshot eyes are evasive and his form is stiff, something about him screams to be comforted.

Carefully, slowly, Chrollo brushes Kurapika’s bangs out of his eyes and tucks the long strands behind his ear, noticing how his eyes flutter closed for a moment before he forces them open again. And that is all the permission Chrollo needs.

Drawing closer, he takes Kurapika into his arms. The blonde does not reject the touch, but nor does he relax into it. He battles many thoughts of _you shouldn’t, how could you, disgusting, traitor, weak, you should be ashamed_ with _I want to I want to I want to I want—_

“I just…” he drawls tiredly. “I just want to not feel like _this._ I just want—”

Chrollo tucks Kurapika’s head under his chin and strokes his hair, and Kurapika finally lets himself cave in, closing his eyes as he melts into the touch.

“Yes?”

“I just want to feel good,” Kurapika whispers. “I’m so tired…”

“Rest now, Kurapika,” Chrollo whispers into his ear.

He hums in assent, feeling the caresses ease him into a gentle sleep.

“The devil was an angel once…” are the last words that escape him—albeit unconsciously—and he thinks he remembers the sound of a low chuckle and the pressure of lips on the crown of his head.

Again, a good number of hours is stolen from him. Daylight pours through the window when he wakes in bed again, alone this time, and he startles into a sitting position.

On the coffee table lies a note, scribed in cursive letters.

_No, I didn’t kill the maid. You’ll find the room rented under a pseudonym._

_Call me, whenever the need should arise for an attentive ear._

_— CL_

Kurapika looks at the number for a good, long minute, crumbles the paper in a fist, and contemplates setting it adrift on a current of wind through the open window.

He holds it out, almost lets go, then decides against it.

He pockets the piece of paper and hisses.

“ _Fuck_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmm I envisioned this chapter as just them talking, but Kurapika really needed a hug and Chrollo really wanted to hug him. I'm powerless against those two.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	3. Right then, he kisses my skin

Kurapika doesn't remember a time when he felt so much at peace.

White blossom trees tower above him, their entangled branches creating an illusion of unity, as though they are a single entity that spans the entirety of the forest. Their leaves glisten and sway at a passing breeze, perfectly green and lush from seasonal rain; and through their crevices, sunlight breaks through to color him in a mosaic of light and shadows.

He closes his eyes at the warmth that settles on his cheeks and mellows his form.

The brush of fallen petals on his eyelids and lips is soft, much like a caress... until it suddenly turns scalding.

At once, his eyes snap open to evergreens rusted to a fiery orange that eats away at itself until there is only black and soot. 

Everything is burning.

And he can’t move. 

Panic builds in his heart—urgency has his every nerve firing in tandem, and he _can’t move_. 

His chest rises and falls in rapid succession. Smoke invades his nostrils and fills his lungs until every breath he takes suffocates him more than the last. 

He can move his eyes, but only his eyes.

He looks to the right, and sees a creek whose water runs red. He looks to the left—his heart falls to his feet—and sees faces melting to incongruity until they are stripped to teeth and bone.

Their eyeballs fall to his feet.

And he wants to scream.

He can’t scream.

Hundreds of voices fulfill this desire on his behalf. They scream in unison, all their anguish concentrated in a single, tortured howl.

Until a single voice drowns them all. 

Small and inquisitive, it calls, “Kurapika?”

A tear runs down his cheek.

His mouth forms the syllables, but no sound comes out.

“Pairo…”

Pairo’s small hand clasps his own, face eclipsed in an everlasting smile, and he guides him down a trail of singed grass and cinders until they reach an empty grave.

“Come with me?”

“Come… with you?”

And Pairo, still smiling, still maintaining an iron-grip on his hand, falls back-first into the grave.

Kurapika is falling…

… right into wakefulness.

With a pained, air-gulping gasp that burns his lungs, he startles awake in bed, drenched in cold sweat and feverish. 

Phantoms still dance behind his eyelids, so he makes it a point not to close them. 

A few weeks have passed since he was grievously injured, and he has made a full recovery in that duration, but at this moment, his body aches with a bone-deep pain that feels reminiscent of broken ribs and internal trauma.

Shoulders sagging and sheets hopelessly tangled along his limbs, Kurapika looks at the alarm clock on his bedside table. 12:33 A.M. He had a total of one hour and fifteen minutes of sleep. 

“This is getting ridiculous,” he says to himself, voice hoarse and trembling. 

Kurapika throws aside the sheets and stands, still unsteady, and showers in scalding hot water.

But it fixes nothing. It reminds him of how tired he is—he fails to remain standing on his feet after the first couple of minutes, and ends up slinking to the marbled floor, allowing the sharp, needlelike water droplets to pelt down his stinging back—and he still sees them. He sees the eyeless faces. Hears a chorus of wailed blame and scorn, all directed at him, and allows it to sear his mind with a red-hot iron.

He turns off the water and stands in front of the mirror, hesitating for a moment before clearing away the fog that blinds the glass.

His reflection shouldn’t come as a surprise. Haunted eyes framed by deep, dark circles are only to be expected, after all. But what worries him is his failure to associate with the face staring back at him.

“Doesn’t matter,” he mutters eventually and returns to the small, dark room and its stifling emptiness.

Kurapika sits on the bed and peers at the clock—1:16 A.M.—as a realization crystallizes in his mind with resounding clarity.

“I have no idea what to do…” he confides to the empty room, and the silence that is offered as a response is almost mocking in its cruelty.

Blond tendrils release drops of water on messy sheets. “But the bed is already too cold to sleep in, anyway…”

Would he be able to sleep if he tried? He genuinely doubts it.

As though guided by an impulse that is not his own, Kurapika finds himself gripping onto a piece of paper in one hand, and his phone in the other.

Every number is pressed at an impossibly slow rate—a token of reason struggling against whim and failing; yet soon enough, he is pressing the call button and immediately regretting this decision.

The phone rings once, twice, before someone picks up, and Kurapika forgets to breathe when he hears the voice on the other end.

_“Hello?”_

He stays silent.

_“… Is this you, Kurapika?”_

And he hangs up.

Blood thrumming in his veins and feeling impossibly stupid, Kurapika almost throws his phone across the room, but—its screen flashes, and the ringtone is a startling disruption to the overwhelming silence—Chrollo is calling him back.

Kurapika draws in a deep breath and accepts the call, pressing the phone against his ear almost hesitantly. 

_“You know, I do get tired of playing cat and mouse.”_

The voice is mirthful and smooth, and Kurapika can almost see the smile that accompanies it.

In turn, his own voice is hollow. 

“It was a mistake. Goodbye.”

Before he can hang up, Chrollo says, _“You sound rather hoarse. Nightmare?”_

With a shuttering sigh, Kurapika admits, “Yes. I can’t—I can’t get more than an hour of sleep. I always end up having these dreams.”

_“Did you call to talk about your latest dream?”_

“No.”

_“Why then?”_

Kurapika twists the sheets with his fingers, and the words tumble out of his mouth with little agency. “Last time… You know, when… I was injured…” He leaves out words and gives away only those that are key to connecting the dots. “I actually managed to sleep till midday.”

_“I see. So you wish for us to meet again.”_

His eyes screw shut and he digs the heel of his hand into one of them, whispering to himself, “This is so stupid…”

_“But not at all impossible. I’ll be in the same room I rented before in about half an hour. Will you make it?”_

The surprise is enough for him to cease his abuse against his eye. “What—you want to meet right now?”

_“I’m leaving town tomorrow morning, so unless you want to wait until another business brings me to Swardani, then yes, it has to be now. Same pseudonym as last time. See you soon, Kurapika.”_

And the line goes dead, leaving Kurapika to stare in dulled astonishment at the now dark screen.

Fate is a cruel maiden, and its sense of irony is nothing short of ruthless.

Is he truly seeking comfort from the same hand that dealt him its strike? When did the warmth of a bloodied touch become preferable to the frigidness of no touch at all? And just how far has he fallen?

“Am I actually doing this?”

But as he poses this question to himself, he stands wearily and makes to his closet, choosing a formal outfit because what else does he have to wear? His traditional garb lies at the very back of a never-opened drawer, and the mere sight of it tugs at his heart sickeningly. At some point, in the midst of shady dealings and foul offerings and merciless interrogations, he decided that retribution means walking a scorned path, shameful to his clan and disrespectful to its elders and their ways. 

And every step he walks to unite himself with his family distances himself eternally from their embrace should he see them in the after life when he dies. But even that is questionable. Kurapika scoffs, _impossible is a more suited word._

Now here he is, walking down silent streets in the dead of night, hammering one more nail in his coffin and damning an already damned soul.

_Does it even matter anymore?_

Likely, it matters not at all.

It is a means to an end, much like many other things that he forced himself to do to come closer to achieving his goal. If he sleeps better, he will work better. Their souls will be at peace sooner. And then this will be over.

He enters the hotel at the end of the street and asks the receptionist about the room registered under _Immanuel Kaufmann,_ and she gives a polite nod and a key with the number 532.

Perhaps if he were less tired, the few stagnant moments in the elevator ride would have fed his anxieties, but he allows them to pass with hardly a blink of his half-lidded eyes.

When he reaches the fifth floor, the door opens with a _d_ _ing_ , and it is then that he feels his heartbeat accelerate. He walks down the hallway, feeling his extremities grow heavy with numbness, before coming to a halt before the door emblazoned with _532._

Kurapika hesitates for a moment, his grip loose on the key until it becomes hard and resolute.

He unlocks the door and turns its knob, and is greeted with a room that is still fresh in his memories. The soft candlelight is a noteworthy change—it tarnishes the gray, hard edges and renders the room warm and personable.

Unlike Kurapika, Chrollo looks very much at ease, sitting crosslegged on the very same chair as last time with a book resting snugly in the palm of his hand. He closes it upon noticing the new arrival, turning his head to greet him with a smile. It fails to soften the calculation from his unblinking gaze.

“You came,” he observes, with no surprise in his tone. But perhaps there is satisfaction, if the rising inflection at the last syllable serves any clue to the emotional state of the enigmatic man.

Tearing his eyes away from him, Kurapika nudges the door closed with his back and pretends to inspect one of the paintings—a triptych whose first two panels are set in light, but his attention is drawn to the third panel; to the surrealistic depiction of long-suffering figures in unforgiving darkness. His eyebrows furrow slightly, his interest now genuine.

Still appraising the painting, he asks an unrelated question. “Why Immanuel Kaufmann?”

Silently, Chrollo comes to stand next to him. Kurapika feels the weight of his gaze, but refuses to meet it.

“I simply figured that you’d like the philosophies of Immanuel Kant and Walter Kaufmann,” he says lightly, and there is that subtle desire hidden in his words to discuss what Kurapika likes and doesn’t like—to probe his mind and walk its corridors and learn its secrets.

So Kurapika makes certain that his face betrays nothing, and he swallows the, “I do,” that threatens to leave his lips, but the bewilderment at such a gesture, at the correct prediction, lingers in his mind.

Not to be disheartened, Chrollo turns his sight to the painting in front of them as well. “ _The Garden of Earthly Delights_ ,” he enunciates its name. “A triptych that depicts heaven, earth, and hell. The earth panel is the largest, perhaps to accommodate every human whim that can’t be fitted into either of the two extremes. It’s a forgery, of course,” he adds this as though to assuage any doubt Kurapika might have that it was stolen, “but it’s an exact replica.”

Kurapika scans it, and grows dimmer the longer he looks at it. “It looks like a depiction of human fate. From the bliss of heaven down a vale that leads to eternal suffering,” he spits out.

From the corner of his eye, he spies a bottle of some beverage—whiskey, if the glass is any indication—and he moves to the table to pour himself a glass.

“Not exactly a therapeutic piece to have, is it?” Chrollo muses as he watches the blonde drink away his thoughts.

“You mean to say the idea of biblical punishment isn’t a constant in your mind?”

Offering a chuckle, Chrollo spares another glance at the painting. “Perhaps it’s a warning to those smart enough heed it. Or a reminder.”

“ _Memento Mori_ ,” Kurapika mutters against the rim of the glass before the bitter drink meets his tongue.

“One can’t help but grow jaded,” Chrollo says wryly.

_But to be jaded is to be unaffected._

And the feeling of a soft hand guiding him to an early grave tugs at his heart with both yearning and dread.

_What is the difference between living and dying if I’ll be alone either way? I don’t deserve to be wherever you are…_

Chrollo’s voice interrupts his reverie. “I can tell your mind is elsewhere.”

The invitation for him to share his worries is subtle yet blatant. Kurapika wonders, if he lays bare the parasites that eat away at his mind, heart, and soul, would they accept a different host?

“His face,” he says at last, voice small and face twisted in misery. “I can’t escape his face.”

The steps Chrollo takes forward are very light. Kurapika would have easily missed them had a tall form not cast a shadow over his visage.

“Whose face?”

“Pairo.” The utterance manages to sound both numb and charged with emotion. “But you didn’t care to know him then. So why should you now?”

At the lack of response from his otherwise eloquent malefactor, Kurapika looks up and sees the same stoic face from the newspapers and the clippings; from wanted lists and on the boards of blacklist hunters, complete with red threads weaving ridiculously difficult webs of association. It is a face that occupies a steady place in the very depths of his mind, unchangeable and terrifying in its cold-bloodedness.

But… now… there are subtleties that Kurapika can swear belong to no photograph he has seen of Chrollo Lucilfer.

Like the crease between his eyebrows, or the thoughtful downturn of his pale lips. His gray eyes are tired in their own right, and should they offer any insight to his soul at all, Kurapika would say that it is a barren, desolate place, with little joy and even less hope, marred by apathy and cold calculation. But the loneliness that Chrollo once spoke of… Kurapika sees it, too; just beyond the immaculately constructed walls that are inexplicably left unguarded for once.

Regret and guilt are the emotions that Kurapika searches for against his better judgement, taupe eyes probing, scanning, foraging—but there is nothing of such nature in Chrollo’s eyes. Confusion and disorientation are poor replacements.

Kurapika lets out a shaky breath and lowers his gaze.

_What am I even doing…_

_What am I doing—here, with you?_

“I can’t bring back what I’ve taken away from you,” Chrollo says softly, and Kurapika looks up again, craning his neck upwards to meet his gaze. When did he come so close? Every word is a whisper that stirs the blond tendrils near his cheek. It entices an unfamiliar chill that goes down his spine. “But I can give you some of what you’ve lost as a consequence.”

“What are you talking about?” Kurapika says lowly. The distance between their mouths is so minuscule that it feels wrong to speak at a normal volume, and the intermingling of their breaths throws his senses into disarray.

Chrollo leans in even more, his mouth directly above Kurapika’s ear. The words he whispers serve as a mediator between lips and skin. “I can make you forget. Even if for a little while. You said you wanted to feel good, didn’t you? I can give you that, at least.”

The breath that escapes Kurapika is shocked if not faltering, but his voice is incredulous and his stance is unwavering. “You’re— _insane._ Why would I want— _I hate you.”_

Drawing back a mere inch, Chrollo looks at Kurapika, taking note of wide eyes and slightly flushed skin. “Sex is rarely a reflection of love alone. It’s an emotional outlet; you choose which emotion you let out. Isn’t it what you had in mind when you called me, even if at the very back of it?”

“You’re ridiculous—that’s called jumping to conclusions.”

“No; it’s foreseeing what you will desire if I touch you again.”

Chrollo’s hand traces down Kurapika’s forearm to reach his wrist, and he presses two fingers against his pulse point, sensing the erratic rhythm of his heartbeat.

“There’s not shame in it,” he whispers again, his lips brushing against the side of Kurapika’s mouth, who can barely stop himself from leaning into the touch or closing his eyes.

“I _hate_ you,” Kurapika tries again, but his voice carries the impression of frustration aimed at his own self; a coda to any thought that dares challenge firm belief and an instigator to self-loathing.

But Chrollo says, “Show me,” and the frustration inside Kurapika revolts and expands beyond the confines of his body.

He pushes against Chrollo, gripping onto the lapels of his blazer until his knuckles turn white and crushing his lips against the other’s. The sensation is foreign—warmth, steadily increasing pressure, electricity shooting up his every nerve, _movement of flesh against yielding flesh_ —and he nearly overwhelms himself, letting go for a desperate intake of air.

It is then that the leather-clad hands rise to envelope his face and guide him. Chrollo tilts Kurapika’s head slightly to the side and presses his lips against his. This time, the contact is slower and more deliberate, and when Chrollo takes Kurapika’s lower lip between his own lips and sucks on it, the blond hums in pleasure, inadvertently giving access for a tongue to slip into his mouth.

The sensation is thrilling and addictive, and Kurapika is too engrossed to give much mind to his own lack of experience and admitted clumsiness. There lies a distinct relief in taking a partner whose judgement Kurapika cares little about, and he plans to exploit this to the very end.

He scrapes his fingernails against the nape of Chrollo’s neck and is surprised when this entices a small sound of pleasure from his partner.

Chrollo pulls back slightly, just enough to look at Kurapika’s flushed face, whose eyes flicker with various shades of red—liquid specks of crimson, ruby, auburn, _scarlet_ —terribly alive and devastatingly beautiful, in a way a lifeless monument could never be.

Drunk on agitated lust that battles the shattering of a dream-like trance, Kurapika says, “Why are you stopping?”

Chrollo smiles, swiping a thumb beneath an insomnia-ridden eyelid. “Simply looking at you.”

“Look less.” Kurapika twines his arms around Chrollo’s neck and kisses him again, still with little restraint and bordering on harshness.

“You should slow down,” advises Chrollo, his words muted by insistent lips before he disengages himself. “You’ll only become overwhelmed like this.”

Kurapika shakes his head. “If I slow down, I will think. If I think, I will stop and go back to my apartment and get no sleep for two consecutive weeks. So don’t slow down. Keep goin—”

And Chrollo kisses him, just deep enough to quiet down not only his words, but his thoughts as well. His hands slip Kurapika’s suit jacket to the floor and he treads forward, forcing the blonde to take a step backward. They meet each other step by step, until Kurapika’s knees hit the edge of the bed and he falls onto the mattress, hair splaying around his head and hands rising in instinct to grip Chrollo’s shoulders as he bends down to claim his lips again.

The contact is impossibly gentle—much more gentle than how Kurapika deserves to be treated or how Chrollo should be able to behave, but it is also unspeakably _soothing—_ a Hemlock sip that cures rather than poison and _he can’t get enough._

Kurapika feels his button-up shirt being worked open and wills his heart to beat a little less violently. Sensitized by many years of abstinence from the most casual of touches, every accidental brush of fingers against his skin makes him jolt.

And then, hot lips find his neck—just at the crevice where his jaw meets his throat—and everything goes silent in his head. Kurapika cranes his neck backwards, biting his lip and breathing heavily as Chrollo kisses his way down his chest and makes sure to stop every once in a while to nibble or lick at a chosen spot. When supple leather finds his nipples and strokes, Kurapika’s tight control over himself slips and he lets out a surprised moan.

All those sensations, all at once…

“What… is this…?” he lets out with a shuddering breath, barely registering Chrollo’s chuckle.

“You’re much more sensitive than I thought you would be,” he says quietly, his teeth finding the ruby earring and tugging gently, all the while he runs a feather-light touch along Kurapika’s abdomen and torso, which yield so easily in fluttering spasms in time with the descent of fingers and their departure.

“Shut up,” Kurapika manages from between gritted teeth, hands weaving themselves into raven hair.

Chrollo rests his thumb against Kurapika’s chin and urges him to unclench his jaw by adding a little pressure. “Don’t restrain yourself on my account. This is for you. _Let go_ ,” he enunciates the last words carefully, whispering them right into his ear as his voice drops to a lower octave, and Kurapika inhales—

His pants and underwear are removed together, leaving him vulnerable to the chilled air and Chrollo’s gaze. An arm encompasses his left thigh and the hand is one centimeter shy from touching him _there_ , and the exhale he releases is much too shaky.

“Relax, Kurapika.” Chrollo whispers into the skin of his inner thigh, his breath hot and heavy, and when Kurapika looks down at him, he sees that his pupils are blown wide, drowning his eyes in blackness. His grip on his disheveled, raven hair tightens. 

“You—” Kurapika starts and stops, clearing his throat before speaking again. “You’re still fully dressed.”

With a sinful smile and a head tilt, Chrollo straightens up, dares to cheekily say, “My apologies,” and then proceeds to remove his gloves with his teeth, one at a time, quite likely very acutely aware of the open-mouthed stare this is earning him.

Two odd-looking tattoos on either hand are made visible, and Kurapika almost asks before deciding that now is not the time. He swallows and wets his lips, his attention held captive by the admittedly handsome man undressing himself with excessive patience and no haste at all. Kurapika is not even aware that his hands are gripping the sheets beneath him in barely restrained anticipation.

Once Chrollo is fully naked in front of him, Kurapika licks his lips unconsciously, and notes the way dark eyes lazily, wantonly, trace the motion.

And Chrollo is kissing him again. This time, there is no pause and no respite. He kisses him again and again, open-mouthed and hungry, until Kurapika pulls away, panting.

Chrollo takes his time to look at him, at his haphazardly strewn blond hair and his kiss-swollen, red lips. At his burning, scarlet eyes. And Kurapika almost feels tempted to raise his hand and rest it atop Chrollo’s eyes to shield his view. For an inexplicable reason, he doesn’t.

“Beautiful,” Chrollo lets out at last, breathless. He brushes his lips against Kurapika’s cheek, then against his lower lip. “Simply divine.” He tugs at the dangling earring between thumb and forefinger before letting his hand wander to a pale throat. “I could drown in decadence, drinking in the sight of you, and I wouldn’t have a single regret.”

Kurapika digs his fingers into strong shoulders, and hisses, “Don’t say things like this.”

“Like this?”

“Like—like you and I—are _lovers_ ,” he sputters at the last word and all but spits it out.

Chrollo hums, pauses for a second, then says, “Noted.”

And from then on, things progress in a manner that prevents Kurapika from having a single sane thought. There is the sensation of being pulled to the heights of bliss, being filled for preparation then filled to completion, and if a scream of pleasure is torn from Kurapika’s throat, it is soon swallowed by Chrollo’s mouth.

He whispers such sinful thins to him; things that make him forget who he is; things that make him wish he was someone else. That they were both someone else.

It is wrong in every way that it is right. It is shameful and decadent and immoral and _wicked_ and he never wants it to be over.

The bed creaks, his enemy-turned-lover encircles him possessively in a rare show of vulnerability, and Kurapika reaches his climax. Head thrown back to dig into the pillow and toes curling around the sheets, his release strips him of every speck of energy, and it is in a haze that he braces his partner’s weight when he too comes to a completion.

And, inexplicably, unconsciously, his lips draw up in a smile, content and worn out.

The harbinger of nightmares has kissed his eyelids with the promise of a restful night.

Nothing makes sense.

But the fingers that brush his hair from his eyes are gentle, and the arms that embrace him are warm, and he doesn’t need anything to make sense.

Sleep pulls at him, and he surrenders willingly.

“Sweet dreams, lovely Kurapika.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who will win, Mr. Master of Seduction or one touch-starved insomniac boi?  
> Jokes aside, this chapter was hard to write and I'm not sure it turned out how I wanted it to. But that's it, that's what I have to offer.  
> Do share your thoughts, even if it's by just randomly slamming your keyboard haha. :')


	4. It's me to decide: this or that side

It is fifteen minutes past eleven o’clock in the morning. Sunlight is streaming through the open window. Gently swaying curtains bestow their token in the form of patterned shadows—embroidered irises and violets—that dance atop the bedsheets in a mellow cadence. The empty side of the bed falls out of light’s reach; it is cold and dark and has been abandoned for at least four hours. Not a crevice or a wrinkle is present to remind of the man who occupied it, though his memory echoes in Kurapika’s sore muscles and benumbed heart.

With the sheets bundled at his naked waist, he sits hunched on his side of bed, elbows resting atop folded knees that are lazily spread apart. His shoulder bones are made prominent in this position, and his ruby earring catches light and reflects it in a bright red beam. And with his sun-soaked blond hair and luminous pale skin, Kurapika looks like a freshly fallen angel that has been spurned from grace for all of eternity. How ironic it is that the only panel from the triptych that catches light is the one that depicts hell.

In his limp hands sits his phone, and on the screen is a message.

_‘Now begins the search for a scapegoat. I wonder, if you blamed me, would you have achieved peace of mind or prevented yourself from experiencing it ever again?’_

The breath he exhales is shaky and burnt out. He must have read those two sentences a dozen times, and _still_ he fails to find an answer.

And so he resorts to tried and tested methods, muttering a leaden, “I hate you,” at the screen, though this utterance falls limp and vapid from his mouth, and when it reaches his ears, he almost scoffs at how meaningless it sounds.

He hates him. And then what? It didn’t prevent him from letting Chrollo share his bed. Didn’t erase the fact that out of all the people in the world, Kurapika sought _his_ comfort. _His_ warmth. _His_ body, _his_ touch, _his_ voice.

_But that’s to strip things from their context. I only did it so that I could be well-rested when I work. I chose him because I don’t care about burdening him. I did it so that no one else has to suffer the weight of my woes, regardless of how much I hated it._

Kurapika grips at his hair and groans. Martyrdom and self-sacrifice are pretty armors to hide behind, but the hairline cracks along their lengths only seem to widen upon scrutiny, and if he dwells on it long enough, he is certain that they will shatter and leave him bare to face the truth.

Because self-sacrifice is only valid in the face of something so loathsome and despicable that it leaves him lamenting the obligation of such a choice. It doesn’t apply to this situation. Not when he…

Gulping down the bitter taste in his mouth, his shoulders cave in even more.

Not when he enjoyed it.

Something unnamed in him feels sated. The thrum of his blood is not corrosive for once, but tranquil and vigorous; it travels to his brain and clears it of addled thoughts, then to his core which burns in refusal to be denied again. Pandora’s box has been opened, and Kurapika has reveled in its disclosed secrets. Stray images from last night plays in his mind’s eye, and his heart aches for a second and heat pools in his abdomen.

“Fuck,” he curses once under his breath, and for good measures, he repeats the curse three or four times in an aggrieved litany.

Scrolling down the screen, he sees a continuation to the earlier message.

_‘Self-blame has more or less the same effect. But you don’t need me to tell you that, no, Kurapika?’_

“Oh, fuck you,” Kurapika exclaims more loudly, throwing his phone across the room and standing up to pull on his haphazardly scattered clothes. After an irritated exhale, he pockets the phone whose screen is now shattered, but not before he deletes and blocks Chrollo’s number.

 _I won’t think about you anymore,_ he resolves angrily as he makes his way out of the hotel without so much as a glance at the confused receptionist. _You have outstayed your welcome in my mind._

He dispels the mournful hum that sounds from his traitorous heart. Whoever allowed it to take an enemy for a kindred spirit?

“Ridiculous,” he murmurs in undeniable disquietude. _Loneliness is a potent deceiver._ _Do I actually believe he is—could_ ever _be…_

But Chrollo’s eyes, for all their emptiness, are earnest. The reflection Kurapika caught of himself in their depths was not a trick of the mind.

He screws his eyes shut and cuts the thought at the beginning of its conception lest it develop any further.

_No more. I won’t think of him ever again. I must focus on what actually matters._

And for the longest time, he succeeds at exactly that.

A month passes, and once again, work becomes a priority for the Mafia boss. The scarlet eyes are lined neatly in a shrine in an abandoned church, and every fortnight, he lights the spent candles and replaces the withered flowers. And he speaks to them—to his fallen brethren; to Pairo. His promises of a soon-to-be fulfilled reunion are assured and unwavering. But his vague pleas for forgiveness are whispered and uncertain.

He no longer knows what he is apologizing for.

Sitting on a lone, low stool and holding a photograph of a smiling boy who shall forever remain a boy, Kurapika strokes over his friend’s face once with a thumb. “Pairo,” he breathes out, and instantly, the frown marring his features deepens, his eyes glazing over in numbness. “It looks like my journey is finally beginning.”

He pauses. “But… where am I going?” The words tumble out of his mouth, aimless and meandering, but they fill the silence, and it has been a long time since he laid bare his heart’s deepest secrets. “Even if there… wasn’t a place I could return to or someone to welcome me home…”

Alone, in the company of the dead—who might have scorned his company could the eyes have borne witness to everything he has done; had they possessed tongues to speak—Kurapika feels out of place. He feels lost and unwelcome. There is little comfort in the lifeless body parts, no warmth of recognition in the unseeing gazes; and not for the first time, he questions his goals and mentally screams at the lack of fulfillment that comes with their accomplishment.

A rage whose fire has been snuffed and a commitment that feels more empty than righteous.

How foolish he feels.

But his feelings have been leading him astray the last few months, and so he only focuses on his resolve.

A few more pairs of eyes left.

And then…

… what?

Kurapika shuns the thought the moment it transpires and stands on his feet, expression dark, hollow, and fully relentless.

With a gun secured in a holster tied to his left thigh, and chains that draw from his life’s energy, he is a weapon ready to strike at the command of a clockwork mind. He must keep his head clear at all times.

_A Prince of somewhere in the Azian continent, that man had said…_

This is Kurapika’s only lead for the next pair of eyes, and he must begin to pursue it.

What good luck it is that a Zodiac arrives with a request that gives him direct access to both intel and the very person he is pursuing.

Prince Tserriednich.

Kurapika’s eyes narrow, mind concocting schemes and working at a breakneck speed, the adrenalin coursing through his veins endowing him with a vitality he thought he had lost somewhere along the line.

Everything is crystal clear in his mind. The plan is elaborate and seemingly fool-proof, and should the danger of a succession war prove to be too dastardly, then he had already signed his death warrant the moment he established his _hatsu_.

His scarlet eyes might eventually be the end of him after all, but it would be by his own design.

Kurapika’s journey is finally beginning… as it is ending.

Later that night, and after deciding upon their course of action, he and his team sit together in the drawing room.

“A Mafia boss and a Zodiac,” Melody muses from the sofa, sipping softly from a cup of tea. Her eyes twinkle with amusement, but her smile is concerned and sympathetic. “I spy a discrepancy.”

Cross-legged and gazing into his own cup, Kurapika says, “Politics is made and refined by criminals. It’s not a stretch for someone like me to become a Zodiac.” And he drinks.

But that is not the end of his list of vocations.

The morning after, he finds himself a royal bodyguard to a Prince. A small one; barely out of infancy, with a soft head of curly hair and a tiny fist that searches for his finger. Her face is serene and full of naive trust, with not a speck of much warranted worry to crease her rosy skin. And when she lets out a gurgle of laughter, Kurapika almost forgets that this baby is an unwitting contestant in a bloody war where she could be slain without a moment’s hesitation—and by her own siblings, no less.

Kurapika’s heart tugs in pity, and an unfamiliar wave of affectionate loyalty consumes him and threatens to alter his priorities. 

The Queen and the Prince— _a mother and her daughter—_ are a vision of vulnerability that refuses to yield under the weight of a cruel fate.

And this vision speaks to him. He failed to protect his clansmen. He vows not to fail his charge.

With a hand placed solemnly atop his chest and a bowed back, he pledges allegiance to Queen Oito and Prince Woble.

Perhaps he knew it in the very back of his mind when he accepted the job, but the moment he chose the living over the dead, the trajectory of his fate had changed.

Kurapika nods respectfully and turns on his heel to leave, but the Queen’s soft voice stops him dead in his tracks.

“Kurapika,” she calls, kind-faced and infinitely weary. She gestures for him to sit beside her on the plush sofa. “I’d like to get to know you a little.”

Hesitation and reluctance cause his steps to falter for a microsecond, but he complies before she can sense any of his misgivings.

A smile paints itself on her visage. Though she is a quite young mother to a recently born child, she wears the cast of maternal concern as if it were second nature to her.

“Your eyes,” Queen Oito begins, and Kurapika sucks in a breath. Does she know? How could she? And he is wearing black contacts, so even if— “They’re much too old for you,” she continues, and his heartbeat quietens, his shoulders sagging in relief. “You look like you bear the weight of the world on your shoulders.”

“Nothing more than the weight of my responsibilities, Your Majesty,” he says stiffly.

Nodding in understanding, she says, “I won’t invade your privacy; I promised that much. But… and forgive me if I’m overstepping my boundaries.” Waiting to see his approval, she only continues when his attentive silence implores her to do so. “You remind me of myself back when I was an inhabitant of Meteor City, full of rage at an unforgiving universe and desperate for a chance to escape my life. It made me reckless. I saw an opportunity to become a queen of a foreign land and seized it. The image was lovely in my head. Fame and riches—who could resist? But if I had probed further… I would have seen the fault lines in the grounds I chose to walk. And my daughter wouldn’t have had to defend herself when she didn't even have a concept of _self_ to begin with.”

With his hands clenched atop his thighs, Kurapika listens on with a stark, sombre expression.

Queen Oito smiles, gray eyes gathering mist and glistening, wise and somehow knowing. It reminds him of someone, but he quickly suppresses the unwelcome memory. “Settling on a desire isn’t enough. Think beyond that. When you’ve accomplished what you want, will it have been what you truly wanted?”

Something clogs his throat and he blinks his suddenly dry eyes only to feel a stinging burn. Kurapika opens his mouth to speak, but she raises a delicate hand to stop him.

“It’s a question for you to dwell on. Perhaps you can tell me the answer when you’ve trusted me enough to tell me why you are where you are.”

He lets his mouth fall closed, at a loss for words in any case.

In the cradle of secure arms, Woble stirs and begins to whimper, but she quickly quietens when her mother tends to her with soft coos and gentle rocking.

When the Queen’s attention is withdrawn from him, he knows that he is dismissed. Standing up and inclining his head in a bow, he only leaves when she offers a permissive smile.

Dusk has always been his favorite time of the day, but the beauty of his golden-hued surroundings is lost on him as he entertains his disordered thoughts. Instead of calling for a cab to take him back to his apartment, he treks down the long path; the one that diverges from the ruckus of civilization and offers him the peacefulness of unobtrusive rivulets and swaying tree leaves.

Kurapika arrives at his front door at an unknown hour, but the darkness of the moonless night sky suggests that he has been walking for quite a while. Turning the doorknob after unlocking it, he halfheartedly flicks open the dim headlamp and slips free of his suit jacket. He raises his head, tired and non-expectant, and feels the fatigue being drained from his body at a surge of adrenalin that shocks his senses into alertness.

Right there, on his favorite armchair, sits the very person Kurapika has been trying to forget for the last month, cross-legged and seemingly very much at ease with breaking into his enemy’s residence. Chrollo looks up from his book and pins Kurapika down with a heavy stare. The bags beneath his eyes seem a shade darker, and the fond amusement that he tends to afford the blonde is nowhere to be found.

“You blocked my number,” he starts, voice trailing off vapidly. “Quite needless. I could’ve called you regardless.”

“You’re trespassing,” Kurapika counters, choosing to ignore the open invitation for him to press forth with inquiries as to why he _didn’t_ call—though the temptation lingers at the tip of his tongue.

As he brings himself to a stance, Chrollo discards his book by dropping it onto the cushion of the armchair with uncharacteristic carelessness.

He makes towards Kurapika with a darkness to his countenance, his features bereft of the calculated tentativeness of seductive charm. “Hardly my most outrageous crime.”

When he is face to face with Kurapika, the change in his front is undeniable. While the Spider Head has always been an image of composure and assured confidence, the man before him is shaken and distraught; characteristics that are fruitlessly guised behind a sheer facade of detachment—one that Kurapika easily sees through, because he dons it everyday.

Against his best attempts, Kurapika feels perplexed and at unease. He wants to know what happened. There are many ways to pose the question, but he chooses the one that doesn’t compromise his pride. “What are you doing here?”

Without warning, Chrollo leans in and kisses him deeply, both hands cupping his face in a gesture that restricts his movements. Kurapika sucks in a breath and grasps at the other man’s turtleneck, feeling the heat of his skin beneath his fingertips, before curtly pushing against him.

Chrollo loses footing but regains balance quickly, opening his eyes to level Kurapika with a burning gaze that speaks of quizzical frustration. He is breathing heavily, but he refrains from losing composure again, though an ominous aura radiates from him liberally.

Dumbfounded, Kurapika can only exclaim, “What’s wrong with you?”

His cheeks are flushed and his eyes are bright. Though his mind is incredulous and confused, his body remembers Chrollo’s touch, and a month’s denial has rendered it traitorous and weak.

Chrollo sees this and exploits it—edging closer, his hand falls onto the mess of blond hair, heedless of the widening of Kurapika’s eyes, and massages his scalp gently with the tips of his fingers, easing his touch down the nape of a tense neck. He pinpoints the exact moment Kurapika’s stiff posture yields under the soothing pressure, and with the same hand, he tugs him forward to kiss him again.

What excuse does Kurapika have now?

He closes his eyes and moans into Chrollo’s mouth, feeling vigorous, excited, _alive_. There is no schematic motive or masterminded reasoning behind this surrender—nothing to explain why he doesn’t throw him off and kill him at the spot other than _this feels good and he has missed it_.

But unlike last time, self-proclaimed altruism doesn’t drive Chrollo’s motives. His movements are charged with a dark emotion brimming beneath the surface, and this causes him to be markedly less tender than he was before.

And Kurapika needs no tenderness. He has his own demons to exorcise, and he duly meets Chrollo’s mouth with tongue and teeth, raising himself on his toes to wrap his arms tightly around the other man’s neck. He arches his back and presses against Chrollo’s body, instinctively grinding his hips against the other’s.

The sound that escapes Chrollo is hungry and impatient. He hoists him up easily by gliding his arms beneath his thighs, never ceasing his kisses, and drops him onto the rug by the fireplace. Wasting no time, he works the buttons of Kurapika’s shirt open and removes his pants, and Kurapika subjects Chrollo’s clothing to the same treatment, sparing a moment to appreciate the tousled raven hair that emerges after the removal of the black turtleneck.

Kurapika splays his fingers against Chrollo’s chiseled chest, effectively preventing him from pinning him down, and climbs onto his lap. He feels at an advantage in this position, scarlet eyes gazing down into the dilated pupils of grey eyes. A scintilla of sobriety flickers and dies in their depths before urgency claims Chrollo again, and he attacks Kurapika’s neck with sharp licks and bites.

The blonde responds with choked sounds that are barely restrained behind bitten lips. He tugs sharply at the thick, raven strands, which forces Chrollo’s head to jerk backwards, allowing Kurapika to nibble at a protruding Adam’s apple. The appreciative sigh he receives spurs him on, and he sucks onto Chrollo’s collarbone, feeling the rapid thrum of his heartbeat against his lips.

Their violent dance is mediated by wanton moans and breathy pleas for _‘more’, ‘faster’, ‘deeper’, ‘don’t you dare stop’_ , and by the time all the lights of neighboring apartments have been turned off for the city to slumber, Kurapika and Chrollo lie with their heads nestled beside each other and their bodies splayed on opposite sides.

It takes a while for their breathing to return to normal, and their bodies are a canvas of bruises and bite marks, but the tension that marred Kurapika’s bones has seeped away, and he feels blissfully hazy in the quietude of post-coital placidness.

As his eyes begin to slide closed, a voice breaks him out of his reverie.

“Thirty years ago, the elders of Meteor City and the Lukso Province formed an alliance,” begins Chrollo, his voice slipping into a calming, narrative tone that is nonetheless distant and empty. Kurapika’s ears instantly prick up, sleep long forgotten as he listens on with morbidly inquisitive dread.

Chrollo continues, “I imagine it was kept secret from the Kurtas, as it was from the Meteorites. The gist of it is a trade in what the other lacked. You lacked the numbers for a workforce that could build and renovate your village, and we lacked… well, we lacked too much for an equal deal, but what mattered most was medicine. In exchange for salves, curatives, and clean bandages, Meteorites were sent to Lukso to assist in construction.”

Kurapika’s heartbeat is racing, and he is deadly silent as he awaits the conclusion of the Spider Head’s speech. He has pondered the whys and the hows of his brethren’s massacre for years on end, and now that he is finally about to be given an answer, he feels oddly ill-prepared and anxious.

“For a while, it went well… But,” Chrollo pauses. “A few months into the deal, our officials noticed that the men who were sent never came back. And the medicine we were given was rudimentary at best. Hardly cured anything past the common cold. When pressed about this, your elders claimed that they couldn’t let their ways be passed on to the outside world; that it was too dangerous for their survival. So I suppose this meant they couldn’t give us any authentic medical recipes. And the men who worked in Lukso knew too much to be returned to their city. They were killed off when they tried to escape or when they expended their energy during the grilling labor, as though they never mattered… because how do you acknowledge the worth of the nameless?”

A leaden weight is firmly lodged in Kurapika’s throat. Truth is a double-edged sword; he has always known this. But the words that leave Chrollo’s mouth sound like sacrilege to what has been painstakingly rendered holy, and his chained hand clutches onto the rug in a desperate attempt to stop himself from lashing out against the slander.

He swallows and says nothing, bracing himself for the continuation.

“You can imagine how desperate Meteor City was to allow such an unjust trade to continue. But clean bandages were better than mold-infested rags, so to speak. For a good period of twenty two years, this was how things were. Five unlucky Meteorites would be sent out when their names were called out during a monthly ballot, and we’d get whatever scraps of medicine the Lukso elders could spare. During the last year of the trade, a deadly disease broke out in our city. Hundreds dies, and were given little to no aid. The healthy ones were sent out to work then killed if they hadn’t died of exhaustion first. And that was the last straw.

“At that time, the Phantom Troupe was only recently established, but our influence was instantly acknowledged. An official called me in and gave me the task of killing every last one of your clan. We didn’t think twice of it. The eyes were never the reason, but a collateral.” Without craning his neck to look at the blonde’s reaction, as though he hoped for nothing at all with this confession, he finishes, “This is why we did it.”

The myriad of conflicting emotions wracking Kurapika’s body tears at his mind and heart. His eyes are a fiery scarlet one moment, then a dull grey-brown the second.

“You think…” he begins, voice leaden as it shakes with burnt-out fury, “this excuses what you’ve done? You think this makes things right?”

Chrollo’s answer is swift as it is emotionless, “No. Nothing does.”

“Then… why—why _tell_ me?!” Kurapika has now raised his upper torso to lean on one palm as he gazes down the infuriatingly cold visage of his enemy.

“You deserved to know.” Chrollo looks into his eyes, and it is then that Kurapika notices that behind the emptiness lies a black fire of unquenchable hatred—only, it isn’t directed towards him. This fire extends its flames to dance alongside its twin’s; the fire which burns in Kurapika’s soul. And realization is a cold weight that sinks down his stomach.

“Someone killed your…” Kurapika trails off.

And Chrollo finishes for him with a bitter pain that licks at his tone, “Shalnark and Kortopi.” Once this bomb has been dropped, he abruptly stands and begins to dress, his expression shuttering off once again.

Too much has happened for Kurapika to know how to feel or how to act. The news might have made him happy two years ago; but death, even that of a Spider, has lost its taste, and now he only feels confused and vaguely strained.

Kurapika looks at the person for whom he thought he could harbor no feelings other than contempt. He sees the invisible blood that weeps from an open heart wound, and realizes that loss is loss. He feels the pain of it too deeply to revel in the death of people against whom he swore revenge. The thought of revenge itself… feels hollow and unfulfilling.

But Chrollo is already leaving without waiting for him to understand his own feelings, and when he opens the door, Kurapika calls out before he can stop himself, “Chrollo!”

Just before he steps out of the apartment, Chrollo turns his face to look at him with an aloof expression.

“I’m… sorry for your loss.” The words sound small and uncertain as they leave Kurapika’s mouth.

But they bring a soft remnant of a smile to Chrollo’s lips. Quietly, he says, “You’re kinder than I could ever be, Kurapika.”

And he leaves Kurapika to dwell on everything that's been said, and everything that hasn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, writing this is becoming more difficult, so to speak. I blame myself for trying to redeem and fix things in such a relatively short fic.  
> Only one more chapter to go!
> 
> These days I've been listening to another song that reminds me of KrKr (it's called Habibi, also by Tamino. Listen to it--it's amazing! Lovely, seductive descriptions of a dark, soulful yearning, it's just--mwah~). A basis for another fic like this one, mayhaps? 
> 
> Anyway! Find me on tumblr if you'd like to talk! (state-of-ambivalence)


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